Ken L

Thanks for that Terry. I've managed to find a couple of options that might suit. At least this time around, the request hasn't been dropped on me at short notice.

Hi folks. Dad has asked me to try to find him a new pole for the usual carp puddles. His budget is up to £400. It needs to be 11m, but an additional meter or so isn't a problem. Now the trick part, he wants the elastic to come out of the side of the pole, rather than be attached to a bung in the bottom of the top 3. I didn't even know that this was a thing until he asked about it, and it doesn't seem to be listed as a feature, even on pole that seem to have it. Can anyone recommend an option that's in budget, and with this weird elastic option?

Happy new year all.

Have a good one folks - and a happy, healthy and fishy new year.

YouTube seems to be full of these idiotic, fake gardening videos. At least the turtle rescue vids seem to have gone away, after people exposed the content creators for gluing shells and barnacles to the poor animals.

Sorry to hear that, Dave, and hope she's feeling better today. You know what's wrong. A massive increase in population, with no correlated increase in services - and nobody prepared to join the dots. Lesson learned! If you (or the Mrs) are ambulant, and it's an emergency, get a taxi, or beg a lift to the hospital. Yes, it's expensive, but what price a life?

TBH, I'd contact the person, or organisation making the rules. The only "bolt rig" I ever use is a running ledger, with a rubber float stop behind it, that can be slid down to lock the lead - That's certainly not fixed, but it is fixed enough to set the hook.

I have a little KastKing baitrunner that I bought from Ali, and it's great. I ordered a big one of the same model, and it's garbage! The whole reel wobbles as you wind in, because the stem flexes. Generally, don't buy the cheapest, and you'll be okay.

I just loaded line onto one of these. I ordered the 5000 size for predator fishing, and I'd say it was closer to a 6000 Shimano equivalent. It's solid, with no stem wobble, silky smooth, has no play on the anti-backwind, and both the bail arm and the bait runner engage flawlessly. I have to say that for £27, I'm impressed.

It's pretty common for people who are granted asylum to go back to the country that they "fled" from for a holiday. That should result in immediate reminding of British citizenship and/or visas, and/or refugee status, and the immediate seizure of all assets to recover the cost of housing, medical care and living expenses.

To be honest, it's shameful that we can't process these people in a short period of time and then kick their chancer asses out of the country. It's a total failure of a government, who have refused to staff the immigration service properly or enforce proper discipline on any staff that refuse to do their job. Whatever your politics, nobody should have to wait years for a decision. In the meantime, we have to address their reason's for them coming. Access to welfare, healthcare and housing needs to be tightened up

It was always an idiotic, unworkable and hideously expensive "plan", and I don't for a moment think that there was ever any intention of implementing it - or stopping/reducing legal or illegal immigration. What it was, however, was a very convenient way to create distraction headlines on demand. Boris flies to Kyiv to derail peace talks and prolong the war - distraction. Excess deaths that may be a consequence of dodgy vaccines - distraction. They think we're stupid - and for the most part, they're right.

I've never been able to take the "critically endangered" eel narrative seriously. My local rivers are stuffed with them (Severn system) and I even feed them once in a while in the stream that runs through the local park. Has anyone actually noticed a shortage?

This might help someone out. https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/daiwa-ninja-reel-4234076

Trade with the EU. https://iea.org.uk/media/brexit-had-no-major-impact-on-uk-eu-trade/

No visitors again this year. There were no decorations outside and no lights on at the front of the house. The doorbell did go, and I almost ignored it. Just as well I didn't 'cause it was Amazon with my booze.

Not good.

Do post the results of your enquiries.

Nice to see you posting, Peter.

Carl Benjamin made an interesting point the other day. The British public seem to be incapable of thinking outside the paradigm of Labour or Conservative - making the smaller parties pretty pointless. The patriots need to infiltrate and take over the Conservative party - and give the membership what they keep demanding.

I don't know why you think I care about the conservative party. The only thing that they've got going for them is that they're not Labour. Meanwhile, you're still convinced that the majority of people regret Brexit, but in the real world:

I thought you said Spain was cheap.... Oh, and the recent by-elections weren't exactly a storming endorsement of Labour. In one of them, they got less votes than they did in the previous election, and in the other they only gained 800 votes.